AAL Member Update to The University of Melbourne

Wednesday 09 Jun 2021 @ 12:00 p.m., Zoom
Dr James Murray and Romy Pearse, Astronomy Australia Ltd; Email: rpearse[at]swin.edu.au

Abstract

AAL will be presenting a general update to staff at The University of Melbourne on our activities of the past year (or so), as well as current projects and funding arrangements – we will also happily take questions and encourage real-time feedback via our new online platform (see more on this below). We have had some staff and Board changes since we last updated the team at The University of Melbourne, so we will touch on these as well. The update will be general in nature, but will also show The University of Melbourne’s involvement with AAL via committee and member representatives. The presentation will also serve to introduce AAL to new staff at The University of Melbourne or provide a refresher for those within the department who haven’t been in touch with us for a while.

New online format for AAL Member Updates during lockdown – information for participants

Held within a standard zoom meeting framework, AAL is currently conducting its member updates du
ring lockdown via a new interactive platform called WooClap. WooClap allows meeting attendees to participate with presenters in real-time throughout the session – they only need to have a personal device with internet capability on hand to do so (a mobile phone, tablet/ipad or laptop). At the start of the zoom meeting, we will provide everyone in the session with a URL to gain access to WooClap. Attendees need simply to enter this URL into their personal device (or they can take an image of the QR code provided on the main screen with their phones) to participate via a series of questions posed by the presenters throughout the session. As attendees respond to these prompts, real-time results from their answers will appear on the main presentation screen which the presenters can then react to.

Feedback from participant responses is captured for review at a later stage, which helps us to gain a better understanding of the individual needs of our members. All feedback i
s anonymous, however, so attendees are free (and encouraged) to be completely honest with their responses during the session. Participation via WooClap is completely voluntary, but we have found this to be a really great method of gaining meaningful feedback from our members (as well as keeping everyone engaged during the session) so we hope that most of the meeting attendees will be keen to participate during the member update.